1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to delivering and presenting high quality, media based content, to users or processes over networks, with assured Quality of Service (QOS) even if insufficient network bandwidth is available.
2. Description of the Background Art
The inventors have recognized that even with advances in network technologies, delivering rich, high quality experiences will remain a challenge. In particular, delivering large media assets—whether they be audio, video, flash, games, data or other digital media formats—often requires more network bandwidth/throughput than is available. For instance, in the case of audio and video, a high bit rate asset can only be delivered in real time if a user's effective bandwidth is at least equal to the asset's bit rate, otherwise the result is a sub-optimal user experience complete with stutters, stops, and content buffering.
On the other hand, a large game executable may not have the same real time constraints (or required quality of service) as a video, however downloading the asset requires a significant amount of time and overhead for the user, even on the fastest networks. While a number of “download managers” on the market will take care of this for the user, a content provider may wish to intelligently and adaptively manage the download of assets to the user device (e.g., a computer, a set-top box with memory and/or processor, a device) in an elegant and transparent manner, without needing the attention of the user.
Given this, there is a need to manage and deliver large, high quality media assets to users using their limited bandwidth in a time shifted manner. That is, there is a need to be able to unobtrusively deliver content to users via available bandwidth and idle cycles, so that when the high quality content is needed, it is readily available on demand and an uncompromised user experience is rendered. This in turn provides the illusion that the user has more effective bandwidth than is actually available. To this end there is also a need for this technology to integrate seamlessly into delivery and presentation platforms (including but not limited to web browsers, flash and other platforms) and content publishing systems. The present invention achieves this and other functionalities and also overcomes the limitations of the prior art.
For ease of understanding, the following definitions will apply throughout this application; however, no definition should be regarded as being superceding any art-accepted understanding of the listed terms.